Anti-Capitalism

Lecio Morais

Description

This book is a collection of essays from some of the world's leading Marxist economists on the problems of globalisation and the evolution of modern capitalism.



With contributions from Suzanne de Brunhoff, Ellen Meiksins Wood, Ben Fine, Simon Clarke, John Holloway and John Weeks among others, it provides a cohesive critique of the weaknesses of the existing system and puts forward a new agenda for anti-capitalist thought and action.



Covering key issues such as globalisation, the nation state, money and finance, conflict and war, technological change, the environment, class struggle, economic crisis, capitalism in the Third World, the collapse of the USSR, and the transcendence of capitalism, this is an ideal introduction to some of the most pressing problems of our time.
Acknowledgements

Introduction by Alfredo Saad-Filho

Part I: Capital, Exploitation and Conflict

1. Value, Capital and Exploitation by Alfredo Saad-Filho

2. Does All Labour Create Value? by Simon Mohun

3. Money as Money and Money as Capital in a Capitalist Economy by Costas Lapavitsas

4. Capitalist Competition and the Distribution of Profits by Diego Guerrero

5. Contesting Labour Markets by Ben Fine

6. Technological Change as Class Struggle by Les Levidow

7. Capitalism, Nature and the Class Struggle by Paul Burkett

Part II: Global Capitalism

8. The History of Capitalism by Michael Perelman

9. Globalisation and the State: Where is the Power of Capital? by Ellen Meiksins Wood

10. Financial and Industrial Capital: a New Class Coalition by Suzanne de Brunhoff

11. War, Peace and Capitalism: Is Capitalism the Harbinger of Peace or the Greatest Threat to World Peace? by Christopher Cramer

12. Understanding Capitalism in the Third World by Elizabeth Dore

13. Developing Country Debt and Globalisation by John Weeks

14. Globalisation and the Subsumption of the Soviet Mode of Production under Capital by Simon Clarke

Part III: Crisis and the Supersession of Capitalism

15. Capital Accumulation and Crisis by Paul Zarembka

16. Marxian Crisis Theory and the Postwar US Economy by Fred Moseley

17. Where is Class Struggle? by John Holloway

18. Transcending Capitalism: The Adequacy of Marx’s Recipe by Michael Lebowitz

19. Towards a Society of Free and Associated Individuals: Communism by Paresh Chattopadhyay

List of Contributors

Index

Sujets

• Political economy
• Science

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 décembre 2002
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849641463
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

AntiCapitalism

A Marxist Introduction

Edited by Alfredo Saad-Filho

P Pluto Press LONDON • STERLING, VIRGINIA

First published 2003 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright © Alfredo Saad-Filho 2003

The right of the individual contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 7453 1894 0 hardback ISBN 0 7453 1893 2 paperback

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services, Fortescue, Sidmouth EX10 9QG Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Towcester Printed in the European Union by Antony Rowe, Chippenham, England

Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction Alfredo Saad-Filho

Part I: Capital, Exploitation and Conflict

1. Value, Capital and Exploitation Alfredo Saad-Filho 2. Does All Labour Create Value? Simon Mohun 3. Money as Money and Money as Capital in a Capitalist Economy Costas Lapavitsas 4. Capitalist Competition and the Distribution of Profits Diego Guerrero 5. Contesting Labour Markets Ben Fine 6. Technological Change as Class Struggle Les Levidow 7. Capitalism, Nature and the Class Struggle Paul Burkett

Part II: Global Capitalism

8. The History of Capitalism Michael Perelman 9. Globalisation and the State: Where is the Power of Capital? Ellen Meiksins Wood 10. Financial and Industrial Capital: A New Class Coalition Suzanne de Brunhoff 11. War, Peace and Capitalism: Is Capitalism the Harbinger of Peace or the Greatest Threat to World Peace? Christopher Cramer

vii 1

27

42

59

73

82

94

106

119

127

142

152

vi

12.

13.

14.

Anti-Capitalism

Understanding Capitalism in the Third World Elizabeth Dore Developing Country Debt and Globalisation John Weeks Globalisation and the Subsumption of the Soviet Mode of Production under Capital Simon Clarke

Part III: Crisis and the Supercession of Capitalism

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

164

175

187

Capital Accumulation and Crisis 201 Paul Zarembka Marxian Crisis Theory and the Postwar US Economy 211 Fred Moseley Where is Class Struggle? 224 John Holloway Transcending Capitalism: The Adequacy of Marx’s Recipe 235 Michael Lebowitz Towards a Society of Free and Associated Individuals: Communism 247 Paresh Chattopadhyay

Contributors Index

259 263

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Andrew Brown, Sebastian Budgen, Ben Fine, John Holloway, Costas Lapavitsas, Simon Mohun, Pilgrim Tucker and Ellen Meiksins Wood for their support and assistance. Special thanks are due to Anne Beech of Pluto Press for her superb handling of this project.

vii

1 Introduction

Alfredo Saad-Filho

The need of a constantly expanding market … chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe … All old-established national industries … are dislodged by new industries … that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the productions of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their sat- isfaction the products of distant lands and climes … The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all … nations into civilisation … It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. 2 In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

CAPITALISM AND ANTI-CAPITALISM

TheCommunist Manifestorings even truer today than it did in 1848. Key features of nineteenth-century capitalism are clearly recognis- able, and even more strongly developed, in the early twenty-first century. They include the internationalisation of trade, production and finance, the growth of transnational corporations (TNCs), the communications revolution, the diffusion of Western culture and consumption patterns across the world, and so on. Other traits of our age can also be found in theManifesto. In the early twenty-first century, powerful nations still rule the world by political, economic and military means, and their gospel is zealously preached by today’s missionaries of neoliberalism. They follow in the footsteps of their ancestors, who drew strength from the holy trinity of Victorian imperialism: God, British capital and the Royal Navy. Today’s evangelists pay lip-service to human rights and the elimination of poverty, but their faith lies elsewhere, in the sacred tablets of copyright law and in the charter of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). They travel to all corners of the globe and, in spite of untold hardship in anonymous five-star hotels, tirelessly

1

2

Anti-Capitalism

preach submission to Wall Street and the US government. They will never take no for an answer. Native obduracy is initially explained away as ignorance or corruption, and then ridiculed. However, even saintly patience has its limits. Eventually, economic, diplomatic and other forms of pressure may become necessary. In extreme circum- stances, the White House may be forced to bomb the enemy into submission, thus rendering another country safe for McDonald’s. It seems that, in spite of our fast cars, mobile phones and the internet, the world has not, after all, changed beyond recognition over the past 150 years. However, even if Marx can offer important insights for understanding modern capitalism, what about his claim that communism is the future of humanity? Surely the collapse of the Soviet bloc, China’s economic reforms, and the implosion of left organisations across the world prove that Marx was wrong? Contributors to this book beg to differ.Anti-Capitalism: A Marxist Introductionexplains the structural features and the main shortcom- ings of modern capitalism, in order to substantiate our case against capitalism as asystem. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 show that Marx’s value theory provides important insights for understanding the modern world, including the exploitation of the workers, the sources of corporate power and the sickening extremes of overconsumption and widespread poverty. Chapters 5, 10 and 17 claim that classes exist, and that class struggle is, literally, alive and kicking around us. Chapters 4 and 6 show that technical change is not primarily driven by the urge to produce cheaper, better or more useful goods, but by the imperatives of profit-making and social control. Chapter 8 reviews the driving forces of capitalism across history, and Chapter 7 shows that capitalism is inimical to the Earth’s ecological balance. Whereas environmental sustainability demands a very long-term cal- culation of costs and benefits, capitalism is based on short-term rationality and profit maximisation.This social system must be confronted, in order to preserve the possibility of human life on this planet. Chapters 9 to 16 challenge other idols of contemporary thought, including the claims that capitalism promotes democracy, world peace and equality within and between nations, that every debt must be paid, that globalisation is unavoidable and unambiguously good, that national states are powerless, and that economic crises can be eliminated. Finally, Chapters 18 and 19 argue that capitalism is both unsustainable and undesirable. In our view, communism is justified not only on material but, especially, on human grounds. Much of what we argue is obvious. Yet often the obvious must be

Introduction

3

demonstrated over and over again, until it becomes self-evident to the majority. This book also challenges the knee-jerk reaction against critiques of contemporary capitalism, the trite motto that ‘there is no alter- native’ (TINA). Leading proponents of TINA include rapacious free-marketeers, prematurely aged philosophers of the ‘Third Way’, delusional economists, opportunistic politicians, corrupt bureau- crats, bankrupt journalists and other desperados. They claim that human beings are genetically programmed to be greedy, that capitalism is the law of nature, that transnational capital is usually right, and that non-intrusive regulation is possible when it goes wrong. They argue that capitalist societies, even though historically recent, will last forever, and that the triumph of the market should be embraced because it is both unavoidable and advantageous to all. They reassure us that massive improvements in living standards are just around the corner, and that only a little bit more belt-tightening will suffice. Deceptions such as these have helped to legitimise the growing marketisation of most spheres of life in the last 20 years. In rich countries, this has taken place primarily through the assault on the social safety nets built after the Second World War. Low paid and insecure jobs have been imposed on millions of workers, the provision of public services has been curtailed, and the distribution of income and wealth has shifted against the poor. In poor countries, national development strategies have collapsed nearly everywhere. Under Washington’s guidance, a bleak ‘era of adjustment’ has taken hold across the so-called developing world. In these countries, low expectations and policy conformity are enforced by usurious foreign debts and neoliberal policy despotism monitored by the IMF, the World Bank and the US Treasury Department. Recent experience abundantly shows that neoliberalism tramples upon the achieve- ments, lives and hopes of the poor everywhere, and that it often 3 leads to disastrous outcomes (see below). In spite of the much repeated claim that history is dead or, more precisely, that significant social and political changes are no longer possible, the neoliberal-globalist project has been facing difficult challenges. It has suffered legitimacy problems in the United States because of falling wages in spite of rising national income, in Western Europe because of simmering social conflicts triggered by high unemployment and stagnant living standards, and in Japan because of the protracted economic crisis. It has had to contend with

4Anti-Capitalism

the social and economic collapse of the former Soviet bloc, and with repeated financial and balance-of-payments crises in South East Asia and Latin America. It has also had to explain away the economic and political meltdown in sub-Saharan Africa, and to face frequent wars and unprecedented levels of terrorist activity across the world. Last but not least, neoliberal globalism has been confronted by profound disillusion everywhere, and by vibrant protests and mass resistance, especially in Argentina, Ecuador, Indonesia, Mexico, the Occupied Territories and South Korea. In this context, the recent ‘anti-globalisation’ or ‘anti-capitalist’ protest movements are important for two reasons. First, they are global in scope, combining campaigns that were previously waged separately. In doing so, they have raised questions about thesystemic features of capitalism for the first time in a generation. Second, they have shed a powerful light upon the dismal track record of contem- porary capitalism. Although initially marginalised, these movements shot to prominence in the wake of the Zapatista rebellion, the Jubilee 2000 campaign and the confrontations that brought to a halt the Seattle WTO meeting. The new movements have joined vigorous mass demonstrations in several continents, and they have shown their opposition to the monopolistic practices of the TNCs, including pharmaceutical giants and corporations attempting to force-feed the world with genetically modified crops. They have challenged patent laws and clashed against other forms of ‘corporate greed’, leading to boycotts against Shell, Nike and other companies. These movements have also targeted repressive regimes, such as Myanmar’s military dictatorship, and shown international solidarity, for example, with the Zapatistas and the Brazilian landless peasants. In spite of their rapid growth, these movements remain fragmented. Different organisations pursue widely distinct objectives in diverse ways, and occasionally come into conflict with one another. The lack of a common agenda can hamper their ability to challenge established institutions and practices. Several pressure groups, including the environmental, peace, women’s, gay, lesbian, anti-racist and animal liberation movements, international solidarity organisations, trade unions, leftist parties and other groups, defend their autonomy vigorously, sometimes allowing sectional interests to cloud their mutual complementarity. In spite of these limitations, political maturity, organisational flexibility and heavy use of the internet have allowed the new movements to expand. Moreover, they have often been able to transcend the rules, habits and con-

Introduction

5

ventions that constrain the NGOs, trade unions, political parties and other institutions of the left. Their recent successes show that there is widespread discontent and fertile ground for the discussion of alternatives, at different levels, around the world. Continuing confrontation against the neoliberal-globalist project and its destructive implications is inevitable. Perhaps more signifi- cantly, it is likely that the anti-capitalist feeling previously channelled through trade unions and political parties of the left has found new outlets. If true, this shift will have important implica- tions for the political landscape.

11 SEPTEMBER AND BEYOND

The growing opposition to the neoliberal–globalist project was tem- porarily checked by the tragic events of 11 September 2001. In response to those terrorist atrocities, the US government has unleashed a loosely targeted state terrorist campaign against millions of people, both at home and abroad. The most important thrust of this strategy has been the so-called ‘infinite war’ against elusive (but always carefully selected) adversaries. Rather than helping to resolve existing grievances, US state terrorism has provided further excuses for private terrorists around the world to target the United States and its citizens. In our view, all forms of terrorism – whether private, state-sponsored or state-led – are reactionary, repulsive, destructive, criminal and utterly unacceptable. The so-called ‘war on terror’ has been rationalised by the naked conflation between the neoliberal-globalist agenda and US imperi- alism. The global elite (the Washington-based ‘international community’) has brazenly subordinated international law to US foreign policy interests. It has granted itself a licence to apply unlimited force against unfriendly regimes (‘rogue states’) or social movements (‘terrorist organisations’), either for so-called human- itarian reasons or in order to defeat whatever it decides to call 4 ‘terrorism’. The overwhelming military superiority of the United States allows its government to pound foreign adversaries anywhere, secure in the knowledge that its own casualties will be small and that the damage to the other side will eventually crack the opposition. The war unleashed by the United States and its vassal states against Iraq, in 1990–91, and further military action in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Palestine, Panama, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan and elsewhere have brought important gains to the global elite, not least unprecedented